Students were in for a surprise in this year’s IIFT exam. The exam underwent a major change in terms of the number of sections available for the students to answer. The earlier avatar or IIFT had only 4 sections – DI/LR, EU/RC, QA, GK. This year, however, the sections were further split into DI and LR separately and EU and RC separately apart from the QA and GK making the total sections to 6.

The implication was that the students had to attempt all 6 sections so that they clear the minimum cut-offs in each section. The luxury that was enjoyed by the students of choosing to answer only LR or only DI in the section was no more available. Similarly, students were forced to answer both EU and RC. This change would make students score less as they would now devote their time in all sections and not just on their strength areas.

General Awareness (GA) was on the tougher side. English Usage (EU) was the toughest in last 5 years and command over English usage and Vocabulary was essential to score well. Reading Comprehension (RC), Quantitative Ability (QA), Data Interpretation (DI) and Logical Reasoning (LR) were on similar lines like last year.

Overall, the cut-off is expected to go down by 8-10 marks. Cut-offs for General, OBC, SC and ST should be around 38-40, 33-35, 28-30 and 20-22 respectively.